The “Perfect” Night

When you hear someone throw the word, “perfect” around, you would think that it was just that; absolutely right in every way.

Well, although last Saturday evening was pretty good in most aspects, it wasn’t “perfect”.

It wasn’t because of anything Bumper’s Landing did, by any means; it was just an unusual night for us.

Why?

Around two O’clock, (keep in mind we leave for the gig at four O’clock), I got a call from Carl that we had no van to transport our equipment in like we usually do. We have been throwing our gear into vans since the seventies to transport our equipment to our gigs.

Well now we needed to go to plan B, and scramble to make that happen. A seemingly small thing like finding another way to transport everything you use, need and require for a show can throw you off, if you let it.

(Ok, I will admit it did throw us off a bit.)

After loading everything into two cars we stood around looking at the cars, the gear, each other, the cars, the gear, each other, the cars, the garage, the house . . . (Yes, this did go on for quite some time), to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind.

Maybe its not easy to understand, but when you pack everything a certain way for each gig, you have a routine that sends up a red flag if something is not in its’ pre-ordained spot, or forgotten. When there is no order, we have no idea if we have forgotten a valuable piece to our musical puzzle.

So we pulled out of the driveway and headed into either musical glory, or musical obscurity. (Ok, that line might have been overly dramatic.)

We drove to Bumper’s Landing; home of the worlds’ funniest place for boaters! (Ok, that line was a little dramatic too.) I think I’m getting the hang of all of this hyperbole!!!!!!

Since it was now fully established that it was in fact, a beautiful day, the place was packed and already in motion. As we assembled to load in our gear, it was still just an odd feeling, grabbing stuff from cars, and not in the usual order. I know what you’re thinking, and YES, it does make a difference. Just enough difference to throw us off.

A little bit.

You know when you look at something, and you think that it might not be right, although it LOOKS right, but still nags at your mind that it’s NOT right. So you keep looking at it, and at that point it’s just a weird feeling.

Well, that pretty much sums up how the afternoon began for us.

So when the first of many patrons at Bumper’s told me of how “perfect” the night was going to be, I just had all of that back story as evidence, that while there was really nothing wrong with anything, it was just not what I would have called, “perfect”.

It was a pretty beautiful afternoon by then. It was a beautiful day already, for many reasons. Now the temperature, while quite warm, was not stifling. And, while it was very busy, people were beginning to scramble for the umbrellas to cut the sun down to size.

Many friendly faces greeted our triumphant return to Saturday-by-the-water. As six rolled around, we began the night on a more official note . . . (I believe it was a G major!). Jimmy Buffett is always a great way to get comfortable for the long night of performing ahead. So we did what any self respecting musical duo would do; we trotted out some tried and true lyrics and music, guaranteed to calm any squall.

Squalls out on the gulf streamBig storm commin’ soonPassed out in my hammockGod, I slept till way past noonStood up and tried to focusI hoped I wouldn’t have to move farSure could use a bloody marySo I stumbled over to Loui’s back yard

With our feet firmly planted in the musical terra firma, it was time to touch all of our musical genres one by one.

Country, Country Rock
Motown
Folk, Blues and Pop

We attempted all of requests as well, to the delight of the smiling Boat people. Yes, getting there was the real challenge this week. And for the most part, that wasn’t too bad either.

Maybe the night wasn’t perfect, but around these parts, a near miss is pretty, pretty good.

Can’t wait to get back into the Bob-And-Carl-mobile and settle in for the big July 4th celebration.

That might not be perfect, but I do know that at Bumper’s Landing, it will be pretty damned good.